Reclaiming 1619
A look at the complexities of Virginia in 1619 suggests that assigning blame for slavery is a complex business.
Kevin Gutzman Subscribe
Kevin R. C. Gutzman is professor of history at Western Connecticut State University. He is the author of Thomas Jefferson—Revolutionary; James Madison and the Making of America; and Virginia’s American Revolution: From Dominion to Republic, 1776-1840.
"Landing Negroes at Jamestown from Dutch man-of-war, 1619" an illustration in Harper's Monthly Magazine, v. 102, 1901 Jan., p. 172. Image: Everett Historical Photos / Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZ62-53345.Cleansing Our Institutions the Lessig Way
(image: Dirk Ercken, shutterstock.com)McCulloch: A “Rule of Construction” Too “Broad and Pliant”
In response to: The Destructive Legacy of McCulloch v. Maryland
Chief Justice John MarshallMore Responses
Unlike our latter-day advocates of judicial engagement, Marshall saw that the separation of powers embodied principled limits on the judge’s role.
Blame the later interpreters, not John Marshall, for the misuse of this circumspect opinion.
Those who rejected the very premises of the 1787 Constitution, as John Marshall understood them, had to be faced down.
Constitutional law has to be approached as law, not as political philosophy.
The Constitutional “Moments” You Can Believe In
Peter Onuf’s Jefferson
Give Me Madison, Please!
Gordon Lloyd and Steve Ealy provide considerable material to ponder. The gist of their argument seems to be that rather than a Progressive political culture centered on quadrennial presidential elections and a governmental system featuring a considerable policy-making authority for both the president and the Supreme Court, we ought to prefer a “Madisonian” system. While sympathetic toward, and indeed enthusiastic for, their criticisms of our current political culture, I demur from their ascription of their views to James Madison. Their Madison is not Madison as I understand him, and I prefer the real thing. Consider the Lloyd/Ealy account of Madison’s response…
More Responses
It is subtle, or at least ironic, to use a term—“liquidate”—that has lost its original meaning to initiate a discussion of constitutional interpretation. Today the word still has a legal usage, referring to the payment and settlement of debts. The OED finds that meaning in English publications at the time that Madison and Hamilton employed…
Gordon Lloyd and Steve Ealy make a compelling case for liquidation, what they call “Originalism for the Living Generation,” as the most Madisonian means of settling constitutional meaning. Grounded as it is in Madisonian text and example, from The Federalist to the bank veto, the superb account Lloyd and Ealy offer is difficult to assail…
Making Jefferson Safe for the Historians
Washington, DC - Jefferson MemorialRice University’s John Boles was for many years (1983-2013) editor of The Journal of Southern History, which after The Journal of American History is the most-cited scholarly journal in the field of American history. In that position, he had substantial influence on, besides being substantially influenced by, the shape of the field today. Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty comes as a kind of valedictory. As in his earlier work, Boles is self-consciously guided in writing it by recent developments in academic historiography. Contemporary politics make themselves felt in his story of the Master of Monticello, too. A full one-volume account has long…
The Radical Jefferson: A Conversation with Kevin Gutzman
Sanford Levinson’s New Constitutional Settlement
Sanford Levinson here sets himself the task of examining not what he calls the “Constitution of Conversation,” but what he terms the “Constitution of Settlement.” He notes that many people devote barrels of ink to proposing meanings that they hope to see imputed to a few clauses of the Constitution: the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, the General Welfare Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Due Process Clauses. These clauses and a few others make up Levinson’s “Constitution of Conversation.” On the other hand, virtually no attention is paid to clauses such as the Inauguration Clause or the…
Breaking the Chains of Ignorance and Despotism
Political rhetoric does more than simply convey partisan messages. It can also provide insight into changing conceptions of the relationship between the citizen and government, the ruled and the rulers.
So, for example, in its 1776 Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress did not just lay out its case for seceding from the British Empire. Rather, it claimed that God had endowed men with certain inalienable rights, famously including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It also envisioned the citizenry as ultimately in a position of mastery over its government. When government ceased to serve their purposes, Congress claimed, “It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
